Scientists can’t use coronavirus antibodies from gay men to find a cure for COVID-19

Scientists are scrambling to find a treatment for COVID-19 infection, but they’re being forced to exclude gay men who have the valuable antibodies to fight the disease. Until the ban is lifted, efforts to find a potential cure or vaccine remain hampered.

Related: Baldwin, Senate Colleagues Urge FDA to Change Discriminatory Blood Donation Policies to Combat Coronavirus Pandemic

People who have contracted and recovered from the disease are being urged to donate their plasma so the antibodies can be extracted and injected into critically ill patients as part of an experiment to find a treatment for the virus that’s ravaging the world.

A government ban prevents men who have had sex with men in the past year from donating blood. With a critical shortage currently, Democrats have called on the FDA to “revise” the ban.

NBC News spoke to Sabri Ben-Achour, a gay man who recuperated from the disease and attempted to donate as part of the study. He was asked to go to a hospital to have his blood drawn and was later notified that he had indeed recovered from the disease and there was a “robust” level of antibodies in his plasma.

Doctors wanted him to return and donate blood right away.

But when Ben-Achour told them…

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